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Title: [Louisa A. White photograph album]
Description: Photograph album of portraits of unidentified middle-class African Americans including fourteen men, eleven women, and three babies., Various photographers from New York, Rhode Island, and Philadelphia. Philadelphia photographers include J. Fenton, J.W. Hurn, Parlor Galleries, and Comly T. Santman., Title supplied by cataloger., Date from manuscript inscription written on inside cover: Louisa A. White, Wishes & Regards of Anna Gibbs Philadelphia, With the best, Christmas 1878., Missing front cover, back cover, spine, and back pages., Gold gilded pages, edges cut with leaf design., Purchase 1996., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Date: [ca. 1878]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums [P.9505]

Title: Original & selected poetry &c
Description: Friendship album of Amy Matilda Cassey, a middle-class African American woman active in the antislavery movement and African American cultural community, containing contributions dating from 1833 until 1856. Contains original and transcribed poems, prose, and essays on topics including slavery, womanhood, religion, friendship, female refinement, death, and love. Also contains drawings, watercolors, and gouaches of flowers and a rustic, residential scene, possibly in New York. Contributors, including many women from the antebellum African American elite community, are prestigious reformers and abolitionists active in the anti-slavery, scholarly, educational, and cultural community of the antebellum North, including Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Baltimore., Contains the following contributions: entry by African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, dated Philadelphia 1850, about his "coarse" contribution in an album of "refined" entries; an original sonnet, "Fallen Bird," and essay, "The Abolition Cause," by anti-slavery activist, author, and editor, William Lloyd Garrison, dated Philadelphia 1833; floral watercolors and calligraphed poems by Philadelphia Quaker activist, educator, and artist Sarah Mapps Douglass; essay, "Moral Reform," dated Philadelphia 1834, by Harrisburg businessman and activist William Whipper; calligraphed version of Washington Irving's poem, "The Wife," by New York African American engraver Patrick Henry Reason dated New York 1839; poem about "Friendship" dated 1837 by anti-slavery activist Robert Purvis; prose on faith penned in 1853 by women right's activist and abolitionist Lucy Stone;, floral watercolors, poems and prose on friendship, womanhood, abolition, and remembrance by Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society associates Rebecca Buffum, Susan C. Wright, and sisters Hannah L. Stickney and Mary T. Stickney, and sisters Mary Forten (p.10), Margaretta Forten, and Sarah Forten Purvis, as well as their sister-in-law Mary Virginia Wood Forten (p.22); memorials to his deceased wife and daughter by Baltimore African Methodist Episcopal Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne written in 1849; and an essay by abolitionist Reverend Isiah George DeGrasse dated Bridgewater 1836. Additional contributions by Baltimore anti-slavery activist Emily Willson; anti-slavery activists Ann Warren Weston and Elizabeth Le Brun (Stickney) Gunn; Philadelphia barber and activist John Chew; abolitionist James Miller M'Kim; University of Glasgow trained activist James McCune Smith; Boston reformer Wendell Phillips; C.L.R., possibly Charles L. Reason, abolitionist and brother of engraver Patrick Henry Reason; A.W.H., possibly Quaker abolitionist Anna W. Hopper, and E.G., possibly Quaker abolitionist Elizabeth Garrigues., Also includes sketches and a poem by probably Lydia A. Bustill and unattributed watercolors and sketches possibly by Amy Matilda Cassey., Title from item., Inclusive range of dates inferred from entries inscribed with dates., Embossed and gilt morocco binding with blue moiré silk doublures., Lib. Company Annual Report 1998, p. 25-35., Research file available at repository., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022., Cassey, an abolitionist, temperance and civil rights activist and founding member of the multiracial Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society and the African American literary and science society, Gilbert Lyceum, was the daughter of New York black community leader, Reverend Peter Williams. She was the wife of Philadelphia businessman and civil rights activist Joseph Cassey, and later married Boston anti-slavery lecturer Charles Lenox Remond.
Creator: Cassey, Amy Matilda, 1808-1856
Date: [ca. 1833-ca. 1856]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Amy Matilda Cassey album [P.9764]

Title: [Print specimens depicting African Americans from the Thomas Richardson and American Bank Note Company scrapbook]
Description: Includes predominantly banknote specimens showing enslaved, free, and possibly free African American men, women, and children. Images depict an African American man driver hauling a wagon filled with hay (p. 38); an African American man farm hand tending to horse in a farmyard (p. 38); enslaved men harvesting a field of grain (p. 45); an African American man cart driver hauling bundles up an incline (p. 50); enslaved men picking cotton juxtaposed with a townscape vista (p. 54); African American men workers collecting sap from trees under the view of a white foreman on horseback (p. 61); enslaved men, women, and children cutting and loading sugar cane onto a wagon at a “Sugar Plantation” (p. 66); an African American man driver leading “The Mule Team” on a country road (p. 67); African American men workers “Breaking Hemp” (p. 68); and a proof copy of an illustration from Susan Fenimore Cooper's "Pages and Pictures from the Writings of James Fenimore Cooper" (New York, 1861) depicting a scene by a hearth from “The Spy” with an African American male servant looking over the shoulder of a white woman housekeeper (p. 26). Majority of specimens include roadside scenery or plantation or residential buildings in the background. “Sugar Plantation” view also shows a steamboat on a river in the background., Title supplied by cataloger., Date inferred from the active dates of the partnerships of the printers in the imprints and content., Artists include F. O. C. Darley and Louis Denoce., Printers include American Bank Note Co.; Baldwin, Bald & Cousland; and Bald, Cousland & Co., Some items contain specimen number printed in lower right corner. Includes 131, 144, and 212., RVCDC, Accessioned 2012., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014., Thomas Richardson (b. ca. 1802) was a Philadelphia plate printer who served as the foreman of printing at the Philadelphia branch of the American Bank Note Company formed in 1858. He retired from the trade by 1880.
Date: [ca. 1855-ca. 1857]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *albums (flat) [P.2012.6]

Title: Original & selected poetry &c
Description: Album belonging to Martina Dickerson, a young middle-class African American Philadelphian, probably created as a pedagogical exercise, with twenty-two contributions dating from 1840 until around 1846. Contains original and transcribed poems, prose, and essays on topics including love, friendship, sympathy, courage, and female refinement. Also includes drawings, primarily of flowers. Identified contributors are mainly Black elite scholars active in the African American anti-slavery and cultural community of mid-19th century Philadelphia., Contains the following contributions: calligraphed title page by abolitionist James Forten, Jr.; prose on "Literature," "The Album," and "The Year" by entrepeneur and abolitionist James Forten, Sr. or his son, James, Jr.; prose entitled "Perserverance" by tailor, abolitionist, and civil rights activist John C. Bowers; prose, sketches, and watercolors by Quaker abolitionist, educator, and artist, Sarah Mapps Douglass; watercolor and transcribed poem, "The First Steamboat on the Missouri," by Sarah's brother, artist, community activist, and abolitionist, Robert Douglass; essay entitled "Sympathy" by William Douglass, pastor and historian of the St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Philadelphia; transcription from Wordsworth's "Excursion" by educator and anti-slavery activist Charles L. Reason; gouache of a bunch of flowers by A.H.H., probably Ada Howell Hinton, an African American educator and anti-slavery activist; and prose, poems, and gouache by Mary M. MacFarland, V.E. Macarty, Y.J. Grice, Rebecca F. Peterson, H.D. Shorter, C.D.R., and J.F.V., Title from item., Inclusive range of dates inferred from entries inscribed with dates., Embossed and gilt morocco binding., Lithograph title page, "Flowers," containing flower illustration hand-colored with gouache and watercolor., Blank album published in London by Wm. & Hy. Rock., Lib. Company. Annual Report 1993, p. 17-25., Research file available at repository., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022., Dickerson, a pupil of African American educator Sarah Mapps Douglass, was the daughter of African American activists, Martin and Adelia Dickerson, and step-father Samuel Van Brackle.
Creator: Dickerson, Martina, 1829-1905
Date: [ca. 1840-ca. 1846]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Martina Dickerson album [13859.Q]

Title: [Family photograph album of views of Eastern and Central Pennsylvania]
Description: Family snapshot photograph album photographed and compiled by a Lorah family member, possibly Mary (Lorah) Rismiller and containing portraits of family members and friends and views of Eastern and Central Pennsylvania during family visits and excursions between 1907 and 1916. Album pages are annotated with the name of town visited and often the date of the visit. The photographs are captioned with descriptive or identifying titles and/or annotated with the names of the sitters photographed. Towns and cities visited include Houtzdale, Pa. in 1910; Emaus, Pa. in 1911; Duncannon, Pa. in 1911; Millerstown, Pa. ; Philadelphia, Pa.; Ocean Grove, N.J.; Atlantic City, N.J.; Camden, N.J.; Mexico, Pa. in 1915; and Wernersville, Pa. in 1916. Imagery includes views of businesses and industries, several churches, schools, residences, and recreational areas, as well bridges, streetscapes, cityscapes, and landscapes. Sites depicted show the Houtzdale Coal Mining Region, including views of workers, the entrance, the breaker “after the fire,” and the air shaft; Camden, N.J. Alms House Hospital and Stables; Edwin Glass near the brick oven of a bake shop and “Novelty works” (Duncannon, Pa.); a duck farm (Emaus, Pa.); the Office of Dr. M.J. Stine, Old & New Shirt Factory of B.W. Paget & Son, a wooden tripod structure “Devils Catcher,” and Slaughterback Hill (Millerstown, Pa.); the Juniata River; a bridge and shirt factory (Mexico, Pa.) and South Mountain Park (Wernersville, Pa.), Several photographs document the facilities and staff, including Mary’s brother W. C. Lorah, at the State Hospital at Wernersville. The views show the “Filtering Bed,” “Turburcular” [sic] ward, “Stables,” the “Reservoir,” “Refectory,” “Day Room,” “Isolation Building,” “Laundry/Cold Storage,” “Industrial Building,” “Green Houses,” “Infirmary Force,” (i.e. hospital attendants); and the “Dormitory.” Also contains views from the Lorah family hometown of Blandon, Pa., including the “Lorah House”; views of the railroad, including tracks, stations, and bridges; camping along the Delaware River; and the Camden Carnival., Portrait photographs show men, women, and children posed in front of residences, in yards and public spaces, and on outings. Several of the portraits depict Mary Ritzmiller’s mother Ellen Becker Lorah, as well as niece Selena Lorah, and nephew Merit O. Lorah (as a baby), and brother W.C. (William Chester) Lorah. Other portraits depict a group portrait of “J. Benson employees” posed in front of a shoe store in Holzdale; “Mrs. Lukens” posed from her wheelchair; and an out of focus view of W.C. Lorah “Among the Fens.” Portraiture also includes a portrait taken in Blandon and captioned “Black Annie” and shows an older Black woman standing on the steps of probably a general store and attired in a kerchief, heavy jacket, and skirt. She wears a tambourine at her waist and walks with a cane. A few portraits depict women in chicken coops and Ellen Lorah holding a goose. Several portraits are also annotated with humorful and wry-toned captions, including a series of images of individuals posed to represent “Sports," “Obeying,” “Cherubs,” “Temptation,” and “Just for Fun.” Many of the photographs include objects of the everyday, including horse-drawn vehicles, water pumps, wash tubs and a hand-powered washer, baby carriages and rockers and other children’s furnishings, dolls and stuffed animals, and an automobile. Album also contains portraits of friends from and views of Toledo and Gibsonburg, Ohio in June 1907., Title supplied by cataloger., Date from content., Stamped on front cover: Photographs., Photographs arranged in diagonal patterns on p. [24-30]., Many of the pages contain titles., Majority of images annotated with a caption., Mary Lorah Rissmiller (1883-1959), daughter of Allen Lorah (1849-1922) and Ellen Becker Lorah 1856-1917), was born in Blandon, Pa. and married railroad freight laborer William Rismiller (1879-1959) in 1903. Her siblings included Daniel Clement Lorah (b. 1874), Josiah Curtis Lorah (1876-1957), Allen Harvery Lorah (1886-1967), and William Chester Lorah (1888-1918).
Creator: Rismiller, Mary Lorah, 1883-1959
Date: [1907-1916]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums [P.2022.14]

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